Kneasy / Snape & Lily

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

Kneasy wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_
old_crowd/message/3003 :

<< M.R.James, English, scholar and antiquarian; roughly 1860 - 1930.
Wrote what are probably the scariest ghost stories in print. >>

I've never been *fond* of scary stories, and I have become even more
averse to them in my middle-age.

By the way, an HPfGU post
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/137926 has
independently come up with your theory that Snape's reason for allying
with DD is to get revenge on LV for LV having murdered Snape's wife
and child. This listie uses DD's words while drinking the green goo
instead of using the Occlumency lesson flashback, and postulates that
the Snape baby was born at the same time as Harry and Neville,
therefore a possible Prophecy Baby. 

Dave Frankis wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/3006 :

<< What JKR seems to be conveying is that Harry's potions expertise
reminds him of Lily, and that he is better than Snape. Given that he
is actually using the Half-Blood Prince's recipes, this creates
something of a puzzle. >>

Rather than your three suggestions, I like to think that Severus and
Lily worked as partners in Advanced Potions in sixth year, and Severus
wrote down their discoveries in his textbook (Lily may have written
them down in her textbook or in a separate notebook). Some of the
other spells that he wrote in the margins might have been invented by
them together or by Lily separately and taught to him, but surely at
least some (maybe all) of them were invented by him. The only argument
people on the Main List have against this is that Lily couldn't
possibly be friends with Sevvy in sixth year after he called her that
nasty name at the end of fifth year. I don't think it impossible that
they made up.